Cloning an ancient, struggling hard disk onto an SSD feels like something we did a lot of in the 2010s, but the last time for me was well before the pandemic, and then one of the little old ladies from church had this laptop…

With my “fee” of a four-pack of Thatchers’ Gold and a decent dinner on the line, I felt very rusty. Was Bitlocker even a thing last time I did this?

Fortunately, the free trial of Macrium Reflect was up to the job, and apart from being horrified by the number of screws HP make you undo to swap a simple replaceable part like a hard drive, I was out of the woods. Well recommended, and it also handled the target SSD being smaller than the source.